Absolutely, totally not. Apart from somehow having the most lovely Mrs I could wish for, the rest has been the most enormous disappointment. I had such high hopes when I was young, utterly naive. Life just rips you up and grinds away ceaselessly.

Never been one to look ahead and plan or visualise my ideal life, but I’m happy / lucky with my choices up to now. Mistakes have been made, but I can’t think of any really damaging maljudgements where looking back I clearly took the wrong fork in the path.

I’m not rich but getting by and I have to work pretty hard for what I get but I’m self employed in the bike trade so no grumbles there.
The family’s great, lovely most of the time and hard work just often enough to keep me on my toes.
I made some pretty big cock-ups earlier in my life (wasted far too much money on motorbikes, married someone completely wrong) but yes I am happy with where I am now.

mostly yes.
i have a reliable job, reasonable pay, a fantastic missus, live in a decent area, own outright a reliable car and have almost every base covered on the bike front.
except a fat bike.
it has taken longer than i hoped as im now 44.
due to marrying a workshy cheating bitch first time around.

I’m glad to see I’m not the only person who has asked themselves this question on occasion.

Be grateful for what you have got and remember there are those much less fortunate than yourself.

I’ve taught out in South Africa before, close to the slums of Soweto where pverty and crime is rife… this makes me get annoyed with myself when I start being unhappy with how my life is going.

I often find myself thinking that there should be “more to life than this” when pulling myself out of bed on a Monday morning to go and deal with a bunch of ungrateful teenagers who can’t see the world outside of their blackberry’s and XBox’s (they are currently sat doing a test at the minute). I somehow think I am special and should have ended up rich and living in the alps riding my bike every day… but that’s not realistic is it, but for some reason I am dissapointed that my life isn’t like this.

I often have to remind myself that I have a stable job with a fairly decent income, I’m really really happy with the house I own, my wife’s amazing and I get to ride 13 weeks a year during school holidays. Ive got money for beer and steak and kashima coated bits and can pay what some foreign workers equivalent weeks wages for a shiny tube that says “Thomson” on it… so why should I ever be down? Why am I pissed off that I’ve lost a crown race so can’t fit my new forks yet? Why get annoyed that I’ve sat in traffic for 40 minutes this morning?

Truth is, in this country most of us don’t know what it’s like to have a shit life, even if you lose your job and fall on hard times the state helps to keep things ticking over. But for some reason most of us expect to have ended up being Alan Sugar and feel like something went wrong because we are not.

For most of us the only true pain we ever have to deal with is the death or long term suffering of a loved one.

So why are so many people not happy? I think it is the way our society makes us want more, it complicates life and most of us are always seeking material gain.

My life is great… but I don’t think I appreciate it enough…I think I need to have some kids next to feel like it has really gone well.

Only thing I didn’t want was a “career”. And pretty thankful I don’t when I hear people talking about theirs (be it in a positive or negative sense). So all in all, mrs DD and dd are happy and healthy. Two weeks in hospital with dd made me feel more relaxed about unimportant stuff.

Well I started out as an orphan growing up on a farm in the middle of nowhere. I thought i’d a chance of avoiding the farming life, and manage to hitch a lift into more interesting times. A while back, I ran into my old man, who I was convinced was dead. Turns out he’d been a pretty nasty piece of work for a while, but we managed to patch things up before he passed. After some unforgettable episodes in the last decade, I hope to get my life back on track soon…

I had such high hopes when I was young, utterly naive. Life just rips you up and grinds away ceaselessly.

I found this quite sad. I wrote the following lyrics many years ago by imagining someone really down on their luck. It’s not actually that pleasant to hear it for real…

I’ve heard of life’s rich tapestry
but all it ever seems to be
is bloodied wounds from falling on our knees
With ignorance and disbelief
through apathy and mortal grief
the truth we grasp will slowly slip away
Life is full of discontent
your money earned
your shelf life spent
and what remains The Hand will take away
It’s not all it’s cracked up to be
this torn and bloodied tapestry
a heart of stone is all it gets from me

My life, in contrast, has been blooming lovely apart from the shit. But as the missus says; shit washes-off…

In some ways nowhere near what I wanted (reasonably successful career, married with kids, not got yet – 40 this year)

In other ways I’ve achieved more than I ever dreamed of, had some amazing experiences and been to some amazing places. It’s mainly my love of bikes and mountains which has taken me there.

Skydiving for 3 years was amazing, trip to Nepal gave some much-needed perspective as per Chilled76’s post, having 4 godsons is very rewarding and an obvious pointer to a more satisfying job.

I’m not quite sure where things have gone wrong with the career thing especially, probably just picked the wrong industry (financial services marketing), but am continuing to work on moving elsewhere on the basis that persistence will pay off eventually…

I do think the general culture of consumerism and entitlement is a massive barrier to happiness… Sherpas are a much smilier lot than the masses in Ikea at the weekend!

No, because I’ve never really had a plan and just drift along, I regret this attitude sometimes though. Now I’m 43 I think I should get a plan but I see so many times people who are sensible and have plans get shafted by life and other people, so I dont know.

I wish I hadn’t spent my 20’s lazing about and doing next to nothing, as I’m still paying for it now (just turned 40)
I wish I’d had the money to travel more, and I wish I’d had to foresight to take some risks, and make better judgements…

But, I’ve now got a pretty sustainable and reliable career (project management/Engineering/defence Industry) a fantastic Mrs and two brilliant kids.
We live in a nice area, but currently own the shabbiest house in our road, however, we are going to pull it apart and do a huge extension/renovation this summer which will provide a comfortable and safe palce for us all to live.

Never had high expectations and i havent been disappointed … just gone with the flow
made some good choices also made a few howlers but im very happy with life Im married
have three great kids nice home and a job that pays the bills
dont waste time dwelling on what might have been
if your unhappy with your lot do something to change it
life’s too short